Leggett proposes reprieve on golf course

Additional time will allow more study of uses for Silver Spring site

Residents who have pleaded with the county to keep Sligo Creek Golf Course open after its scheduled closing on Oct. 1 might get their wish if a proposal by the county executive to keep the course open for as long as two more years gets the go-ahead.

County Executive Isiah Leggett's proposal, sent to the Montgomery County Council July 22, would require a $150,000 operating subsidy to keep the course open for up to 24 months after the scheduled closing date, Leggett spokesman Patrick K. Lacefield said.

The course would remain under the auspices of the Montgomery County Revenue Authority and a task force would determine how to make a golf course at Sligo Creek profitable.

"This is some breathing space for the community," Lacefield said in a phone interview last week.

An independent study earlier this year ruled the course was a financial drain on the county golf system, allowing the Revenue Authority to back out of its lease to operate the course.

The $150,000 would only handle operating costs and there are no plans for capital improvements, Lacefield said. The appropriation would likely be approved in the time between the end of the council's summer recess, Sept. 15, and the course's closing date two weeks later.

The task force would include representatives from the Revenue Authority, Park and Planning, county government and the community and would be formed this month, Lacefield said.

The group would "develop options for the continued, self-sustaining operation of the Sligo Creek Golf Course," Leggett wrote in a letter to the council.

Leggett's proposal is a short-term victory for residents, but the only long-term beneficiaries of keeping Sligo Creek open for two more years are the politicians who can temporarily appease a large and vocal group of residents dedicated to the course, said Mark Suffanti, a Silver Spring resident and founder of www.SaveSligoGolf.com.

"They have elections coming up [in 2010]," Suffanti said.

Revenue Authority Executive Director Keith Miller has repeatedly said Sligo Creek needed substantial capital improvements to become profitable and Suffanti wondered if any plans for the course could change that assessment.

"If the condition of running it is it has to be self-sustaining and the Revenue Authority says without a major infusion of cash that ain't going to happen, then how's it going to happen?" Suffanti said. "All [the council is] doing is coughing up the money to keep the gates open."

But Miller, reached by phone on Monday, said he is looking forward to taking "one more look" at how the golf course can be both financially feasible and please the community.

Still, he said the proposal cannot skirt around how to make the course profitable.

"We have to address the long-term financial footing of the facility," he said.

In 2007, the Revenue Authority presented plans to improve the course's profitability, including a lighted driving range and miniature golf course, but those were rejected by the community.

An independent study of the nine-course county golf system by the National Golf Foundation said Sligo Creek "may not be economically viable under its current configuration" and would likely have to be subsidized by the rest of the system if it received no capital improvements.

Councilwoman Valerie Ervin (D-Dist. 5) of Silver Spring said last week that the task force might determine that a course cannot be run profitably at Sligo Creek and the county would be faced with the same dilemma in one or two years that it faces now.

But the proposal at least ensures the proper thought and effort will go into Sligo Creek, said Ervin, who sent a letter to Planning Board Chairman Royce Hanson asking the board to include golf in the master plan study for reuse of the land.

On July 16, the board decided that Park and Planning should not "expend its time and effort" to consider golf as an option because it had no authority to allow golf at the course according to the lease agreement with the Revenue Authority. Park and Planning, which owns the land, is studying new uses for the course because of a no-compete clause in the Revenue Authority's lease and will hold a public meeting on the progress of that study Sept. 9.

In the meantime, as county officials determine the next course of action, residents know the additional time will improve the chances of the 50-year-old golf course living on, but the fight isn't over yet.

"We know we have a lot of work to do and a lot of alternatives to consider," said Woody Brosnan, president of the nearby North Woodside-Montgomery Hills Citizens Association. "But many feared that if the course closed Oct. 1 that we would never have a chance to pursue any alternatives."